[Okfn-irl] Proposal on a process to advance the OGP Project

[Nat O'Connor]

Kevin,
 
Thanks for your suggestions.
 
I don't envisage the Civil Society OGP Steering Group as the only - or even the principle - forum for interaction between the Government and civil society. NESC still provides the formal social partnership link between civil society and Government (http://www.nesc.ie/en/our-organisation/nesc-council/) and individual Departments interact with stakeholders in various ways.
 
Maybe there should be a stand-alone forum for Government-CV Sector relations, like in Northern Ireland, but that's a big undertaking and organisations like the Wheel (Ivan cc'd) among others would be much better placed to develop that.
 
Although OGP is deep and wide in its implications, I would see the OGP Steering Group having a fairly tight remit around the formal OGP process: Feed up information from working groups and anyone else interested. Get a joint plan agreed. Monitor the plan. Input into the international review of Ireland's progress under OGP. Keep in touch with the working groups. Input into the next plan. And so on.
 
This should add value to existing forums and other structures, but not seek to displace them.
 
Thanks for the offer re the plan too. That would be a question for the steering group.
 
Kind regards,
 
Nat
 
 
 
From: Kevin Murphy [mailto:kevin at vaireland.org] 
Sent: 21 November 2013 21:08
To: Nat O'Connor
Cc: admin at ogpireland.ie; communications at ogpireland.ie; okfn-irl at lists.okfn.org; open-data-ireland at googlegroups.com; open-government-ireland at googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Proposal on a process to advance the OGP Project
 
Nat
 
Many thanks for this - and all looks really sensible.
 
Would be a little cautious though in forming such a tight group as a steering group to provide continuity of contact between wider civil society and the Government. I agree a tighter group is needed to work on the Action Plan with government - but it might be more appropriate for that to be a working group of the steering group. The steering group should necessarily be broader - for example in Northern Ireland there is a Joint Forum between Government and the community and voluntary sector. The joint forum has about 30 members and they break into smaller working groups to look at specific actions. 
 
I can appreciate that this may mean more set up time and thinking through a process of how to put together too. However, another way to approach it could be to form your Action Plan group and make the formation of a steering group one of the key actions for the OGP plan.
 
Just a thought - need to keep engagement broad and open.
 
Will be happy to help out in any way that I can - so if it makes sense to you to have someone from the creative sector to help with the Action Plan let me know.
 
Best wishes
Kevin
 
On 21 November 2013 08:36, Nat O'Connor <noconnor at tascnet.ie> wrote:
What follows is a letter to everyone who participated in the civil society meeting with Government officials on 25th October, to anyone who attended the OGP consultations run by Transparency Ireland and to anyone interested in promoting more open government in Ireland - please feel free to circulate. (I have send this email to the above lists, also BCC'd to 43 individual email addresses I have from our discussions of OGP to date)
 
Please let me know if you think this is (or isn't) a good proposal to send to the Government Reform Unit.
 
 
At the meeting (25th October) of civil society activists with William Beausang and officials from the Government Reform Unit at DPER, it was suggested that we propose a process to them to inform their own submission to the Government meeting of late November. I'm conscious that time is pressing on this.
 
Two significant things have occurred subsequently to the October meeting. Firstly, some civil society people attended the two-day global Open Government Partnership summit in London (31st Oct/1st Nov), which was preceded for those who could attend by civil society meetings and open data meetings earlier in the week. Secondly, there has been a major public dispute about FOI fees and a real risk that the amended FOI Act will increase the barriers to FOI usage through higher costs associated with non-personal FOI requests, which runs counter to the goals of the OGP.
 
The summit provided lots of useful information and examples of how OGP is working in other countries, the pitfalls as well as the success stories. There is a vibrant international movement for OGP - but one limited by resources and still in its fragile early stages.
 
In relation to FOI up-front fees, I believe these should be abolished.
 
But OGP is about more than FOI, and it is important that Ireland puts in place a robust process for civil society engagement with Government about our first OGP Action Plan and its implementation (and annual renewal). This process should be solid enough to permit us to have a serious debate with Government about the merits and demerits of FOI fees, without allowing this issue to block further progress on the other 70 proposed actions from the OGP consultancy process.
 
At our discussion at the October meeting, I recall that a potential impasse was identified. Civil society has put forward 71 recommended actions; however the Government has yet to put forward their own list of proposed actions, derived from the Programme for Government and from civil service suggestions from the relevant Departments. We risk getting bogged down if either side wants to stick to their preferred list and go through each item one after the other in exhaustive detail.
 
William Beausang noted that the national OGP Action Plans are meant to be short documents and he suggested that we begin the Irish Action Plan with a higher level narrative text, informed by both lists of proposed actions. Out of this higher level text, we would then derive a set of SMART actions for the first plan. These would differ in detail from some of the proposals from either side, but they would hopefully address a large number of them and provide a basis for substantive progress on some of the OGP goals. (I would add, this should not close down further discussion on any proposals from civil society).
 
Based on this, the following is my suggestion:
 
1.       We want a process that leads to a jointly-drafted Action Plan between civil society and Government;
 
2.       A steering group drawn from civil society needs to be established to provide continuity of contact between wider civil society and the Government. We need a small number of volunteers to commit to attending a regular number of meetings between now and April 2014, to engage with the Government on jointly-drafting the first Irish Action Plan;
 
3.       The Government needs to commit to a series of meetings between now and April 2014 to work jointly on the first Irish OGP Action Plan;
 
4.       All formal records of the process (e.g. Agendas, Minutes) should be posted online in a timely fashion after each meeting, so that wider civil society and the general public can access them and monitor the process;
 
5.       Members of civil society have been consulted by Transparency International Ireland, leading to a report containing 62 recommended actions (some of which are multiple actions). Another 9 additional actions were submitted in parallel to this process, leading to a total of 71 civil society proposed actions (some of which have multiple aspects to them);
 
6.       The Government is to produce a list of its own proposed actions for inclusion in the OGP Action Plan;
 
7.       The first meeting of the Joint Government-Civil Society OGP Steering Group (hereafter Steering Group) should agree headers for high level narrative text within the first Action Plan - drawing on experience from other countries' plans;
 
8.       These headers should be elaborated with text that accurately reflects the diverse ideas and the overall direction of travel indicated in the TI report of the civil society consultations. It should equally represent the Programme for Government/civil service proposals;
 
9.       Based on the high level text, subsequent meetings of the Steering Group should agree SMART actions to be included in the first Action Plan;
 
10.   A draft Action Plan should then be published with sufficient time for wider civil society and the general public to make comments and suggestions;
 
11.   The joint Steering Group than should meet to agree the final plan text for submission to the OGP Summit in April.
 
12.   Periodic meetings of the joint Steering Group should continue to monitor progress on the plan, and prepare for its renewal.
 
Come April 2014, no one is likely to be perfectly happy with the resultant Action Plan, however I would hope that it would give civil society the best possible compromise and a solid basis to see some new open government actions implemented that go beyond what was anticipated in the Programme for Government.
 
Likewise, I would hope that the process would provide a basis for working together and with Government on open government that would be sustainable throughout the lifetime of the plan.
 
One obvious sticking point is who from civil society gets to join the Steering Group? I suggest a group five or six people, to keep it manageable, all of whom should commit to attending monthly meetings until April 2014 and less frequent meetings thereafter. They would also have to commit to regular communication with wider civil society. I would like to see a balanced group, with no more than one or two people sharing the same organisational affiliation, and a balance of the sectors/interests represented in the consultation (e.g. those seeking open data; those seeking accountability for environmental decisions; those concerned with social justice; etc.). This is inevitably going to be a self-selected group, hence the importance of posting documents online and keeping channels of communication open with others. The membership of this group should be refreshed annually.
 
There is already work ongoing to form a series of thematic working groups (following similar topics to the ones being formed at international level in OGP), so that everyone interested in a given topic has an opportunity to voice their suggestions and concerns between meetings of the Steering Group. Facilitating this and attending relevant working groups would be an additional commitment required of anyone volunteering to join the Steering Group.
 
I hope this is of some use in moving things forward. Comments welcome.
 
Kind regards,
 
Nat
Nat O'Connor MA PhD
Director
TASC - Think-tank for Action on Social Change
Second Floor, Castleriver House, 14-15 Parliament Street
Dublin 2, Ireland

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